Former Manchester United defender Phil Jones has opened up on the mental anguish his injury-riddled career had on him.
The 32-year-old joined United from Blackburn Rovers in 2011 and was tipped for greatness. The then manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, somewhat unfairly predicted he would become one of the club’s best players.
His start to his career at Old Trafford was successful. He won a Premier League trophy and played over 100 games in his first three seasons at the club.
He would also go on to make 27 appearances for England.
Jones’ injury record would always hold back his potential, however. He suffered an incredible 23 different injuries during his career, with the majority of them requiring long periods of time out of the game.
Despite fighting to make a comeback, he could only make 13 appearances in his final four seasons at the club. He left at the end of the 2022-2023 season and officially retired from football last month.
Speaking to The Mirror, Jones revealed the mental fatigue of suffering constant relapses in his recovery from injury.
“Anybody who tells you that it doesn’t is lying. And as footballers, you have to put this mask on. You get paid a lot of money, so you are not allowed to have feelings or emotions.”
“The physical injuries made me mentally weak at times. Obviously people will ask, ‘He is always injured?’ as though they think that I wake up one day and think, ‘Oh, yeah, I fancy being injured today’.”
The former defender then claimed he did not always deal with his problems well and would often “shut out” close friends and family about how he was feeling.
Jones claimed that it got so bad that even going out in public, like going to a restaurant, would become an ordeal for him.
“You’d go past people in the street, and they’d say something, and it would aggravate you and get to you. You just hear people whispering, ‘Oh there he is, f***ing injury-prone’. People say, ‘You shouldn’t take that money then’.”
“I found it really hard to go to restaurants for years. You put your head down when you’re walking through crowds and stuff. I didn’t want people to spot me.”
He stated that people had no idea about the hard work he was putting in behind the scenes to regain his former self.
The injuries got so bad that he had to have his meniscus removed, and playing with bone rubbing on the bone eventually took its toll on him.
“I would start getting really, really sharp pains every time I passed the ball. Incredible amount of pain. When I look back now I think ‘wow’, I give myself a pat on the back for getting through those periods.”
Having retired, Jones has turned to coaching, where he started work with United’s academy in September last year.
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